MetaChat - How's your handwriting?

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24 April 2006

How's your handwriting? →[More:]
Since the early 90's most of my written communication has been via a keyboard. Other than an occasional name and number note while I'm on the phone I don't write much anymore. I was adding some notes to some plans this morning and realized my handwriting has really become quite awful.

post by: arse_hat at: 10:17 | 30 comments

My penmanship sucks. But it sucked before there were computers, too. Besides, I always liked typing. Typed stuff looks more..official, somehow.

posted by jonmc 24 April | 10:18

Like a four year old's. A four year old with Parkinson's. but it's pretty much always been that bad.

posted by PinkStainlessTail 24 April | 10:19

I'm the same way, arse. I really despise having to write by hand. My handwriting has never been attractive or readable, and it's gotten worse and worse.

posted by agropyron 24 April | 10:20

Frighteningly good. Like, distressingly small and perfectly formed. I regularly have people comment on it (and then look at me like I'm a whack-job serial killer who's just about to pull a machete out of my back pocket and ask them about lotion).

It's worse (ie, sloppier) when I'm sick, stressed, or in a hurry. But it's still kind of scarily tidy even then.

posted by Fuzzbean 24 April | 10:22

Mine is shite, I stopped handwriting and started printing in university, because I couldn't read my own notes. It's only degenerated since.

posted by Capn 24 April | 10:25

Maybe you should have pursued that, fuzzbean. With the prevalence of PC's, it shouldn't be too long before colleges offer a BA in Penmanship.

posted by jonmc 24 April | 10:25

I have the handwriting of a serial killer. Always have. Many tears in elementary school.

posted by rainbaby 24 April | 10:26

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Divine_Wino 24 April | 10:28

What, the serial killing? Nah, I don't think my blender's big enough to dispose of the bodies efficiently.

posted by Fuzzbean 24 April | 10:29

Wino, have you implanted a webcam in your eye? and if so can you look up some dresses or something?

posted by jonmc 24 April | 10:31

Horrendous. Always has been.

posted by jrossi4r 24 April | 10:34

It's a weird amagalmation of how my dad, mom and sister write. I think I started writing in cursive in kindergarten because my older sister had already learned how to do it and I think I wanted to impress my teacher.

I also took cues on how to do my signature by watching my dad explain how he did his, because looking at it doesn't look like it's really his full name, but it is. His is an almost unforgable signature. (No, I will not post a picture of it.)

My fifth/sixth grade teacher said that when she was in elementary school in Colorado, a teacher taught her to write in cursive by printing letters with little upturns at the end.

posted by TrishaLynn 24 April | 10:39

Mine is pretty good, although some of the letters are formed quirkily so you have to get used to how I write them. Somehow the street I live on keeps getting read by data entry people as Somethingur Place instead of Somethingin Place.

posted by matildaben 24 April | 10:41

Bad. Teachers gave me crap about it for years. Now I'm a computer addict and make a living, in part, because I can type faster than anyone. Mwa ha ha!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 24 April | 10:42

My roman letters are good. My "arabic" numerals are impeccable (numerals in Arabic aren't the same thing as arabic numerals). I write Japanese hiragana and katakana quite well, though my kanji stroke order is sometimes a bit spotty. I can even do a passable French cursive.

posted by Hugh Janus 24 April | 10:57

My 'u's and 'n's are indistinguishable, but otherwise readable. I print a little more than I should. I blame this on my leftiness.

We used to have handwriting tests at school were we were penalised for curly 'g's and 'y's. They're a little printy because of this, but I'm working hard to be more flourishy in all my writing.

posted by flopsy 24 April | 11:04

Mine's awful. I hardly ever write anything these days. All the notes I make at work are typed and it always surprises me when I pick up someone else's case file and there's a page or two of handwritten notes. I type much faster than I can write anyway.

posted by essexjan 24 April | 11:19

≡ Click to see image ≡

They taught Palmer Method handwriting at my school. I still remember it... it's fun and old-fashioned.

posted by halonine 24 April | 11:32

Stange, I had a dream last night where this girl swooned over my handwriting...

posted by porpoise 24 April | 11:39

I have to write a lot at work (we proofread hard copy only), but it doesn't seem to help my printing any. It still looks pretty 3rd-grade to me.

posted by JanetLand 24 April | 12:37

Is there anyone here besides me who has found that he/she almost cannot write—print—at all anymore merely from years and years of neglect? On the very rare occasion I need to write something, even a trivial note to someone, it's almost illegible and looks suspiciously like the scrawlings of a five-year-old child.

posted by kmellis 24 April | 13:11

Which I guess is exactly what arse_hat was asking. But mine is beyong awful, it is not an exageration to say it looks like a small child's. I will often be forced to scribble something out or retrace a letter so that it looks like what it's supposed to be.

posted by kmellis 24 April | 13:13

That is about as bad as I am getting kmellis. I never had great handwriting but now it's embarrassing.

posted by arse_hat 24 April | 13:22

My n's look like u's and my g's look like s's. Not only is it bad and hard to read, but it is slow. Thankfully I have a good memory and don't need to rely on my notes too often.

posted by mullacc 24 April | 13:29

My third-grade teacher told me I'd never amount to anything if I didn't learn to hold my pencil correctly. Bitch. Somehow I just knew that in the future correct pencil-holding was just not going to that important for one's success in life. And lo! There were computers and keyboards and e-mail and IM and ATMs and I was right. Of course, she was right that I'd never amount to anything but it has nothing to do with how I hold my pencil!

So, yeah, my handwriting sucks.

posted by timefactor 24 April | 13:41

Like an 8th grader's. I've always printed. I had to re-learn how to write in capitals when I started drafting, which was as hard as learning in the first place. Can't write in cursive well at all. Signature = illegible.

posted by chewatadistance 24 April | 13:47

How to hold a pencil. This is what I was taught, but I don't do it anymore; I sort of wrap my thumb around the whole pencil so I'm really holding it with my fist.

posted by JanetLand 24 April | 13:50

≡ Click to see image ≡
(you have to right click this one and view it; it's too wide)

≡ Click to see image ≡

More: 1 + 2.

That should be enough to work out my signature, but it's not. I sign things completely differently from my normal penmanship, so don't even try it, buster!

posted by Eideteker 24 April | 15:59

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by seanyboy 24 April | 17:07

I love your 'of', sb!

posted by flopsy 24 April | 17:14

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